Classic Poem

AT WINCHESTER .

Where Venta's Norman castle still uprears
Its rafter'd hall, that o'er the grassy foss,
And scatter'd flinty fragments, clad in moss,
On yonder steep in naked state appears;
High-hung remains, the pride of warlike years,
Old Arthur's board: on the capacious round
Some British pen has sketch'd the names renown'd,
In marks obscure, of his immortal peers.
Though join'd by magic skill, with many a rhyme,
The druid frame, unhonour'd, falls a prey
To the slow vengeance of the wisard Time,
And fade the British characters away;
Yet Spenser's page, that chants in verse sublime
Those Chiefs, shall live unconscious of decay.